In a post featured on Psychology Today, Elinor Greenberg, Ph.D. explains what can happen when you enter a friendship with a narcissist. Greenberg writes:
“People with narcissistic personality disorder have little or no emotional empathy. They can also be devaluing about other people. Eventually, your narcissistic friend is likely to say something that hurts your feelings, offends you, or embarrasses you in public. If you are the sensitive type who cannot brush these things off or who worries what the people at the next table are thinking when you friend insults the waiter or loudly tells you about the ugly dress the woman at the next table is wearing, you probably do not want many narcissists as friends. You will find their behavior too jarring and insensitive to other people.”
Read “Can You Be Friends With a Narcissist?” here
“Despite a wealth of charisma almost too good to be true, the narcissist is riddled with neediness, loneliness, fear and rage. These feelings, which have festered and mutated (by virtue of being ignored) are terribly frightening and, thus, must be pushed away more and more.”
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In an article from the Berkeley Haas Newsroom, Michael Blanding discusses Professor Jennifer Chatman’s paper published in The Leadership Quarterly. The paper examines narcissistic CEOs in the workplace. In particular, Chatman and colleagues determined that narcissistic CEOs are more likely to involve their companies in lawsuits. Blanding writes:
“…Chatman and her colleagues’ research joins a growing body of literature that shows that narcissism isn’t merely an annoying personality trait that carries with it some ancillary benefits; rather, it can be dangerous to a company’s long-term stability and bottom line.”
Read “So sue me: Why narcissistic CEOs can get their firms in legal trouble” here
If you are the child of a narcissist, it can be difficult to know where you stand. From being in denial to feeling inferior, having a narcissistic parent creates a lasting impact.
Read “Adored, Reviled, and Forgotten by the Narcissist” on Psychology Today here
If your adult child is a narcissist, examining and changing your own behaviors can ultimately help them “grow up.”
Read “Is Your Adult Child a Narcissist” on Psychology Today here
“The more I accept exactly what the situation is…the better off I am. Reality is in the present, not the past. I notice, more and more, there is a certain kind of mourning that goes with letting go of the illusion and seeing that the relationship is not what I thought it was going to be…” From Surviving the Narcissist: 30 Days of Recovery
A study featured in the November 2018 edition of Journal of Personality and Social Psychology describes why people choose to stay in bad relationships. Lead author Samantha Joel explains:
“Previous research shows the amount of time, resources and emotion invested in a relationship can be factors in deciding to end a romantic relationship…a person may opt to remain in an unfulfilling relationship if the alternative — being alone, the available pool of partners, etc. — seems less appealing.
In those cases, deciding to stay or go was based on self-interest…the new study shows the first evidence that decisions about an unsatisfying romantic relationship may involve an altruistic component.”
Read the findings here
When certain, negative beliefs are ascribed by a narcissistic parent, a child’s psyche suffers. This realization requires self-awareness in adulthood in order to create change.
Read “You Can’t Heal the Narcissist but You Can Heal Your Life” featured on Psychology Today here
“If you don’t disengage, you remain in the insanity and you prolong the anxiety of letting go…What you hold for the narcissist harms you and creates anxiety. Give it back.” Adapted from When Your Parent Is a Narcissist
In an article from the New York Times titled “How To Harness Your Anxiety” Dr. Alicia H. Clark explains how we can transform moderate anxiety into something resourceful and positive. Clark writes:
“For a variety of reasons, we are engaged in a feedback loop with anxiety. Fearing it, and in response, trying to avoid it or push it down, is part of what can make it such a problem for us. It feels like an obstacle because we have been treating it as such. But the less we fear anxiety and can embrace it, the more useful and helpful it can be.”
Read the article here
Narcissists often harbor deep feelings of inferiority. Often, narcissistic parents transfer this trait to their children.
Read “12 Ways of Seeing Your Entanglement With a Narcissist” on Psychology Today here
“As the child discovers their separateness from their parent, the parent is there to support their child’s self-discovery by being a constant, stable force in the child’s world. This connection forms the foundation… to the child’s eventual independence…The parent understands that the days of parent-child referencing are over, and that they and the child are two separate, whole individuals.”
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